A Twisted Root

‘My direct and indirect forebears are a wonderfully heterogeneous lot – down and up the social scale (mostly down), in and out of church and chapel, Lurgan Papes and Wexford Prods, hanged and hangmen, street-brawlers and scholars, full-blown Orangemen and republican activists.’

In A Twisted Root Patricia Craig traces the remarkable stories of her ancestors, weaving the threads of their individual lives into the sweeping panorama of Irish history. From her multiply-great grandmother Katherine Rose, who made her way from Stratford-upon-Avon to Lisburn as part of the Plantation of Ulster, to Benjamin and Rebecca Lett – children at the time – who escaped the massacre at Scullabogue; from her forebear William Blacker who founded the Orange Order, to her great-uncles Frank, Matt, Gerry and Jimmy, who were all active in the IRA in the 1920s, this astonishing cast of characters creates a compelling portrait of a